mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Arbitrary-steps Image Super-resolution via Diffusion Inversion

arXiv 2412.09013 ↗First posted 12 Dec 2024cs.CVcited by 85

On the map: Diffusion models → Inverse problems and image restoration

Abstract (arXiv)

This study presents a new image super-resolution (SR) technique based on diffusion inversion, aiming at harnessing the rich image priors encapsulated in large pre-trained diffusion models to improve SR performance. We design a Partial noise Prediction strategy to construct an intermediate state of the diffusion model, which serves as the starting sampling point. Central to our approach is a deep noise predictor to estimate the optimal noise maps for the forward diffusion process. Once trained, this noise predictor can be used to initialize the sampling process partially along the diffusion trajectory, generating the desirable high-resolution result. Compared to existing approaches, our method offers a flexible and efficient sampling mechanism that supports an arbitrary number of sampling steps, ranging from one to five. Even with a single sampling step, our method demonstrates superior or comparable performance to recent state-of-the-art approaches. The code and model are publicly available at https://github.com/zsyOAOA/InvSR.

Key facts. Cited by 85 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Inverse problems and image restoration, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 58 of its 74 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 Dec 2024.

Builds on

58 of 74 references.

Closest ancestors · 22

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Degradation-Guided One-Step Image Super-Resolution with Diffusion Priors25 Sep
  2. 2024One-Step Effective Diffusion Network for Real-World Image Super-Resolution12 Jun
  3. 2024Blind Image Restoration via Fast Diffusion Inversion29 May
  4. 2024Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Restoration by Residual Shifting12 Mar
  5. 2024You Only Need One Step: Fast Super-Resolution with Stable Diffusion via Scale Distillation30 Jan
  6. 2023SeeSR: Towards Semantics-Aware Real-World Image Super-Resolution27 Nov
  7. 2023SinSR: Diffusion-Based Image Super-Resolution in a Single Step23 Nov
  8. 2023DiffBIR: Towards Blind Image Restoration with Generative Diffusion Prior29 Aug
  9. 2023Pixel-Aware Stable Diffusion for Realistic Image Super-resolution and Personalized Stylization28 Aug
  10. 2023ResShift: Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Super-resolution by Residual Shifting23 Jul
  11. 2023Exact Diffusion Inversion via Bi-directional Integration Approximation10 Jul
  12. 2023Exploiting Diffusion Prior for Real-World Image Super-Resolution11 May
10 more
  1. 2023Generative Diffusion Prior for Unified Image Restoration and Enhancement3 Apr
  2. 2023DiffIR: Efficient Diffusion Model for Image Restoration16 Mar
  3. 2023GibbsDDRM: A Partially Collapsed Gibbs Sampler for Solving Blind Inverse Problems with Denoising Diffusion Restoration30 Jan
  4. 2022DifFace: Blind Face Restoration with Diffused Error Contraction13 Dec
  5. 2022Zero-Shot Image Restoration Using Denoising Diffusion Null-Space Model1 Dec
  6. 2022EDICT: Exact Diffusion Inversion via Coupled Transformations22 Nov
  7. 2022Diffusion Posterior Sampling for General Noisy Inverse Problems29 Sep
  8. 2022Improving Diffusion Models for Inverse Problems using Manifold Constraints2 Jun
  9. 2022Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models27 Jan
  10. 2021Come-Closer-Diffuse-Faster: Accelerating Conditional Diffusion Models for Inverse Problems through Stochastic Contraction9 Dec

Other references · 36

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  3. 2019PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Librarycited by 20,160
  4. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  5. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  6. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
  7. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
  8. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  9. 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,986
  10. 2020Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 3,229
  11. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 2,994
  12. 2022An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversioncited by 2,231
24 more
  1. 2022Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 1,168
  2. 2021MUSIQ: Multi-scale Image Quality Transformercited by 1,058
  3. 2022Exploring CLIP for Assessing the Look and Feel of Imagescited by 974
  4. 2021Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Datacited by 961
  5. 2023Adversarial Diffusion Distillationcited by 741
  6. 2024Improved Distribution Matching Distillation for Fast Image Synthesiscited by 648
  7. 2021Designing a Practical Degradation Model for Deep Blind Image Super-Resolutioncited by 524
  8. 2020In-Domain GAN Inversion for Real Image Editingcited by 420
  9. 2019Toward Real-World Single Image Super-Resolution: A New Benchmark and A New Modelcited by 400
  10. 2018Recovering Realistic Texture in Image Super-resolution by Deep Spatial Feature Transformcited by 369
  11. 2021GAN Inversion: A Surveycited by 366
  12. 2015Sketch-based Manga Retrieval using Manga109 Datasetcited by 326
  13. 2023Common Diffusion Noise Schedules and Sample Steps are Flawedcited by 308
  14. 2024Scaling Up to Excellence: Practicing Model Scaling for Photo-Realistic Image Restoration In the Wildcited by 281
  15. 2020Exploiting Deep Generative Prior for Versatile Image Restoration and Manipulationcited by 225
  16. 2019Image Processing Using Multi-Code GAN Priorcited by 185
  17. 2023Negative-prompt Inversion: Fast Image Inversion for Editing with Text-guided Diffusion Modelscited by 172
  18. 2017DSLR-Quality Photos on Mobile Devices with Deep Convolutional Networkscited by 156
  19. 2018The 2018 PIRM Challenge on Perceptual Image Super-resolutioncited by 155
  20. 2024ReNoise: Real Image Inversion Through Iterative Noisingcited by 127
  21. 2023CoSeR: Bridging Image and Language for Cognitive Super-Resolutioncited by 66
  22. 2022MM-RealSR: Metric Learning based Interactive Modulation for Real-World Super-Resolutioncited by 33
  23. 2022GLEAN: Generative Latent Bank for Image Super-Resolution and Beyondcited by 19
  24. 2024Eta Inversion: Designing an Optimal Eta Function for Diffusion-based Real Image Editingcited by 11

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 38; 2026: 47.

85 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2025SeedVR2: One-Step Video Restoration via Diffusion Adversarial Post-Trainingcited by 45
  2. 2025FlashVSR: Towards Real-Time Diffusion-Based Streaming Video Super-Resolutioncited by 40
  3. 2025Harnessing Diffusion-Yielded Score Priors for Image Restorationcited by 34
  4. 2025Jasmine: Harnessing Diffusion Prior for Self-supervised Depth Estimationcited by 20
  5. 2025RobotArena ∞: Scalable Robot Benchmarking via Real-to-Sim Translationcited by 15
  6. 2025Lumina-OmniLV: A Unified Multimodal Framework for General Low-Level Visioncited by 14
  7. 2025One-Step Diffusion for Detail-Rich and Temporally Consistent Video Super-Resolutioncited by 14
  8. 2025OMGSR: You Only Need One Mid-timestep Guidance for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 14
  9. 2025NTIRE 2025 Challenge on Image Super-Resolution (x4): Methods and Resultscited by 12
  10. 2026WildDet3D: Scaling Promptable 3D Detection in the Wildcited by 12
  11. 2025NTIRE 2025 Challenge on Short-form UGC Video Quality Assessment and Enhancement: KwaiSR Dataset and Studycited by 11
  12. 2026Fast Image Super-Resolution via Consistency Rectified Flowcited by 7
38 more
  1. 2025Time-Aware One Step Diffusion Network for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 6
  2. 2026PiD: Fast and High-Resolution Latent Decoding with Pixel Diffusioncited by 6
  3. 2025GenDR: Lighten Generative Detail Restorationcited by 5
  4. 2025HAODiff: Human-Aware One-Step Diffusion via Dual-Prompt Guidancecited by 5
  5. 2025UARE: A Unified Vision-Language Model for Image Quality Assessment, Restoration, and Enhancementcited by 5
  6. 2025RIFLE: Removal of Image Flicker-Banding via Latent Diffusion Enhancementcited by 4
  7. 2026Polarization Uncertainty-Guided Diffusion Model for Color Polarization Image Demosaickingcited by 4
  8. 2026Improved Adversarial Diffusion Compression for Real-World Video Super-Resolutioncited by 4
  9. 2025Degradation-Aware Image Enhancement via Vision-Language Classificationcited by 3
  10. 2025FinPercep-RM: A Fine-grained Reward Model and Co-evolutionary Curriculum for RL-based Real-world Super-Resolutioncited by 3
  11. 2026GDPO-SR: Group Direct Preference Optimization for One-Step Generative Image Super-Resolutioncited by 3
  12. 2026MENO: MeanFlow-Enhanced Neural Operators for Dynamical Systemscited by 3
  13. 2025QDM: Quadtree-Based Region-Adaptive Sparse Diffusion Models for Efficient Image Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  14. 2025One-Step Residual Shifting Diffusion for Image Super-Resolution via Distillationcited by 2
  15. 2025CTSR: Controllable Fidelity-Realness Trade-off Distillation for Real-World Image Super Resolutioncited by 2
  16. 2025Enhanced Semantic Extraction and Guidance for UGC Image Super Resolutioncited by 2
  17. 2025DP2O-SR: Direct Perceptual Preference Optimization for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  18. 2025Test-Time Preference Optimization for Image Restorationcited by 2
  19. 2026Combined Flicker-banding and Moire Removal for Screen-Captured Imagescited by 2
  20. 2026Joint Geometric and Trajectory Consistency Learning for One-Step Real-World Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  21. 2026How far have we gone in Generative Image Restoration? A study on its capability, limitations and evaluation practicescited by 2
  22. 2026VOSR: A Vision-Only Generative Model for Image Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  23. 2026HorizonWeaver: Generalizable Multi-Level Semantic Editing for Driving Scenescited by 2
  24. 2026FluxFlow: Conservative Flow-Matching for Astronomical Image Super-Resolutioncited by 2
  25. 2025InstructRestore: Region-Customized Image Restoration with Human Instructionscited by 1
  26. 2025ICME 2025 Grand Challenge on Video Super-Resolution for Video Conferencingcited by 1
  27. 2025Motion is the Choreographer: Learning Latent Pose Dynamics for Seamless Sign Language Generationcited by 1
  28. 2025Rethinking Diffusion Model-Based Video Super-Resolution: Leveraging Dense Guidance from Aligned Featurescited by 1
  29. 2025OmniScaleSR: Unleashing Scale-Controlled Diffusion Prior for Faithful and Realistic Arbitrary-Scale Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1
  30. 2025GMODiff: One-Step Gain Map Refinement with Diffusion Priors for HDR Reconstructioncited by 1
  31. 2025ProCache: Constraint-Aware Feature Caching with Selective Computation for Diffusion Transformer Accelerationcited by 1
  32. 2026Bird-SR: Bidirectional Reward-Guided Diffusion for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1
  33. 2026Eliminating VAE for Fast and High-Resolution Generative Detail Restorationcited by 1
  34. 2026Self-Supervised Image Super-Resolution Quality Assessment based on Content-Free Multi-Model Oriented Representation Learningcited by 1
  35. 2026Spectral and Trajectory Regularization for Diffusion Transformer Super-Resolutioncited by 1
  36. 2026OARS: Process-Aware Online Alignment for Generative Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1
  37. 2026Prompt-Guided Image Editing with Masked Logit Nudging in Visual Autoregressive Modelscited by 1
  38. 2026Bridging Restoration and Generation in One-step Diffusion for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 1

50 most cited of 85 All 85 (JSON)

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2023Solving Diffusion ODEs with Optimal Boundary Conditions for Better Image Super-Resolution
  2. 2025An Empirical Study of Sampling Hyperparameters in Diffusion-Based Super-Resolution
  3. 2025Diffusion Posterior Sampling for Super-Resolution under Gaussian Measurement Noise
  4. 2023ACDMSR: Accelerated Conditional Diffusion Models for Single Image Super-Resolution
  5. 2025Accelerating Diffusion-based Super-Resolution with Dynamic Time-Spatial Sampling
  6. 2024Taming Diffusion Prior for Image Super-Resolution with Domain Shift SDEs
  7. 2026TOC-SR: Task-Optimal Compact diffusion for Image Super Resolution
  8. 2026Stochastic Optimal Control Sampling for Diffusion Inverse Problems